Golden Grades for Empire Metals
“…I might be muted in the phraseology I use but these grades are really good intercepts for Empire…”
Empire Metals’ director Mike Struthers was most surprised at the muted reaction from the markets to one of the company’s most confident investor updates regarding the potential of its Eclipse gold project in Western Australia.
While some investors are spinning out of precious metals and joining the ‘gold rush’ of cannaboid and cryptocurrency equities, their short-termism is overlooking the long term potential of Empire’s new direction.
“Each time we put another hole in we extend our understanding and build some more confidence,” says Struthers who with untypical zeal adds: ” Six metres at five and a half grams and three metres at five grams; I mean good lord these are very good grades.”
These grades are so close to surface that Struthers calculates there’s virtually no strip ratio with possibly only five metres of surface material to remove resulting in a “very attractive open pit scenario.”
The company is also seeing evidence of increasing gold grades at depth, but the near term goals are to collate and publish compliant resource estimate and pit optimisation data. Those may come within weeks. This week’s news though focussed on ministerial consent and the closing of Empire’s acquisition of a 75% interest in Eclipse.
Concurrent to compiling the above, Empire is deep into the recruitment process of finding a new chief executive; someone with experience in gold mining and Australia who can lead the company as it transitions from a Georgian to a majority Antipodean gold explorer.
Ahead of an appointment being announced, former CEO Struthers continues apace: “We’re in discussions with groups about booking slots for toll milling. These toll processing facilities in the region get booked up so we’re already considering booking a slot.”
And fo those who don’t know what toll milling is about, quite simply it’s an arrangement where another organisation will process raw materials or semi-finished goods on your behalf because they have the expertise to do it better than you.
Here Mike talks to Sarah Lowther about how wide a pit could be at Eclipse and how deep the company could push it depending on results to come and calculations to quantify.
The author was remunerated but does not hold shares in the company
